Of all the modern strands of British cinema – the smug rom-coms, the earnest social drama – nothing is quite as guaranteed to repulse me as the seemingly endless stream of movies that eulogise the football hooligan and the gangster. Much like the poverty-porn of filmmakers like Ken Loach (a genre that is also prone to being overly enamoured of unpleasant little shits that the filmmakers have never had first-hand experience of), these are largely middle-class exercises, in this case from Mockney filmmakers who have a woefully misguided fascination with, and sympathy for, people who are complete and utter cunts, aiming their work at Nuts readers who also have a pathetically desperate need to be a bit of a geezer. It doesn’t have to be this way – earlier, better filmmakers have been able to show the ultimate pettiness of these people and the grubbiness of what they do – think Get Carter, Give Us Tomorrow, The Firm. But just as a relentless media campaign has made football both more gentrified (at least on the surface, with antisocial behaviour now mostly ignored by broadcasters and newspapers who have vested interests in convincing everyone that they love sport) and gang culture has pushed aside your more old-school criminal, so we seem to have an idiotic nostalgia for the days when dickheads beat the crap out of each other on the terraces and ‘hard but fair’ crime lords ruled their manor. It’s a nostalgia generally engaged in by people who have never, ever been at the sharp end – or any end – of either cultural stereotype; never had to deal with intimidation, casual violence and social depravation, except while indulging their own laddish fantasies – the Guy Ritchie syndrome, more latterly propagated by the likes of Nick Love and an endless stream of reprehensible TV hooligan documentaries hosted by Danny Dyer, the man who – lest we forget – told a Zoo Weekly reader to “cut your ex's face, and then no one will want her." He was only joking, of course. What a card.

All of which doesn’t bode well for The Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan, which opens with shaven-headed central character Mike (Nick Nevern) in mid-hooligan riot against the police, complete with “let’s ‘av it you cahhhnt” dialogue. This is the film’s ‘hero’, and the guy we are supposed to sympathise with and relate to, as an old school mate Eddie (Simon Phillips) draws him into the world of credit card fraud, using cloned cards to rinse cash points every night. As Mike gets in deeper, he spirals off into a world of easy money, drugs and loose women – of course – while his long-suffering and entirely unconvincing girlfriend Katie (Rita Ramnani) wrings her hands in the background. A spell in a French prison and the increasing violence of his surroundings finally convinces him that he’s ‘out of his depth’ (and how often have you seen that phrase on a Brit crime and violence film synopsis?) and needs to get out, though that is easier said than done.

I’ll say upfront that this is not without some merit. It’s entirely watchable once you accept that every single character is going to be a wanker who probably won’t meet the unpleasant end you’d like them to, and it’s efficiently put together, moving at a fast pace - it never becomes dull, which is certainly in its favour. If, for whatever incomprehensible reason, you are a fan of the genre, then you should find this a superior entry, and at least the ‘white collar’ aspect of the story gives it a bit of a twist. But director Paul Tanter is let down by his own screenplay, which is little more than a string of clichés and lines that brings to mind Harrison Ford’s famous quote to George Lucas – “George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can't say it.". I was going to criticise the performance of Ramnani, who is utterly unbelievable as a character – but I’m inclined to think that it’s the combination of a one-dimensional character and terrible, terrible dialogue that did her in. Nevern and Phillips fare better – the latter is able to make his character almost tolerable, while Nevern does better than you’d expect with an utterly thankless character – one who is a nasty little shit when the film starts and seems to learn nothing other than self-preservation throughout the whole affair. He doesn’t exactly flesh him out – there are no hidden depths revealed here – but at least manages to be believable in his thankless role.

Allegedly based on a true story, it’s hard to see when this is set – full of scenes of street riot hooliganism that date it back in the Eighties, but constantly dropping in crowd-pleasing digs at the banks that place it very much today and based around chip & pin fraud when that was a new thing, it feels all over the place. And depressingly, the film is so wedded to its cockney blokishness, that even when Mike travels to Manchester, all the characters still sound like Londoners. I’m surprised the French coppers didn’t shout "shut it you slaaaag” while interrogating their captive.

I’m sure that on its own level, and for its own audience – a demographic I have no level of connection with – The Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan will be welcomed with geezerish hugs and gang handshakes all round. Personally, as much as I support and admire producer Jonathon Sothcott’s almost single-handed revival of genre cinema in Britain, I’d like to see British filmmakers call a time-out on Lahhhnden accents, shaved headed thugs and gangsters for a decade or two.

DAVID FLINT

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